Why the terrain painting tools are not the same for all maps.

[Jion]

Why the desert terrain tools aren't in mountain for example? It limitates a lot the terrains you can do. I mean, far west, without desert painting tools in a mountain, it's a useless theme. You can't pretend to do a desert theme, without desert. So, what's the matter? Why can't all the terrain textures be in all the maps. I understand the different maps, it's okey, but cmon, we want the terrain painting tools for all the maps. It really limitates the imagination.

 

[gregorburns]

Its a technical limitation unfortunately. It's been requested a lot before. [sad]

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

I still don't buy the "Technical Limitations" argument... Perhaps there are limitations in the number of different terrain paints per biom, but the colors/shades/types can still vary widely within one biom - green grass & gray rock in the same biom for example. Therefore, the paint options given per biom is most likely a Dev choice.

Request: One generic / default Sandbox with: Grass, Snow, Gray Rock, Red Rock, Sand, Stone, Dirt and Asphault - That's only 8 btw but still gives more creative control than the 9 per biom currently available. Four types of grass, three types of sand, etc is just overkill when other more popular / important paints are sacrificed.

 

[gregorburns]

I still don't buy the "Technical Limitations" argument... Perhaps there are limitations in the number of different terrain paints per biom, but the colors/shades/types can still vary widely within one biom - green grass & gray rock in the same biom for example. Therefore, the paint options given per biom is most likely a Dev choice.

That is true indeed, but the 9-similar ones that exist in each biome are a choice that's been made to deal with the issue of not being able to use more textures in a single map. I agree it would be nice to have a map with more variety like you suggest, but I personally also really like the biome idea as they do have different lighting etc. as well. I think a sandbox map with some more varied choices may be a well-received thing though.

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

A quick fix would be to designate "Deciduous" as the generic / wide-variety sandbox in my opinion.

Yes the different bioms are a nice concept, but the best theme parks (like ANY Disney Park) take you to many different places all in one day. I currently can't build a Thunder Mountain-style roller coaster unless I choose the Desert Biom. It drastically limits creative choice and options.

 

[0BobTheJanitor]

Developers do tend to use excuses as to why certain features cannot be added, but in this situation, it's most likely technical limitations. [mouth shut]

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

SAME THEME PARK

 

[gregorburns]

From the Alpha forums:

This isn't just a restriction for restrictions sake. There are some really technical performance reasons why this works this way to do with how textures are applied to the voxel based terrain. If this was just a consequence-free switch we could flip we would have done so already. I know it's not what you guys want to hear, but I figure we should try and clarify when we've done these things for performance reasons verses arbitrary restrictions.

Cheers

Andy

Thread is here for anyone who can access that page.

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

I STILL think the Technical Limitations are in the number of paints available per biom.

These three VERY different textures/paints are in the same biom. Therefore drastically different textures (like these three) CAN be applied within one biom. Are you telling me the stone/off-white paint couldn' be removed and replaced with white snow? My gut tells me it was a creative CHOICE to give a stone/off-white option INSTEAD of snow because Technical Limitations only allow for 9 paints.

 

[Gysan]

Good points.

I wanna mix them up as well.

 

[tyczj]

Yes the technical limitations are the number of paint types we can have in the biome, they have said they can only have 9 for performance reasons which is why people are advocating to allow us to choose the different types of terrain types we want on the biome instead of having presets

 

[RemainSeatedPlease]

Yes the technical limitations are the number of paint types we can have in the biome, they have said they can only have 9 for performance reasons which is why people are advocating to allow us to choose the different types of terrain types we want on the biome instead of having presets

THANK YOU!!!!

+1 Choose your own Terrain Types!

 

[Jion]

I still don't get it(i think they could improve it...) But, okey, maybe it's a performance problem, that it's impossible to repair, but why don't do a map, where you can select what terrain textures you want?

 

[0BobTheJanitor]

Maybe let the player change the terrain in a loaded park, replace one texture which may be unused with another that could only be found in another biome.

 

[zmego]

The biggest issue with this is I use like 3-4 of the 9 textures. If Frontier could let us choose some or all that would be ideal. If not then take the most used ones from each biome and make them the default 9. Who on earth wants an entire park made of red sand?

 

[iFEARdilemma!]

They are aware of the fact the players want this feature.

For now its fine, and we shouldnt bother them any more about that, since they already explained themselves and the reasons behind the actual limitations.

Let them focus on more important / other things for now.

And later, I am sure maybe some time later they will look over it again.

 

[xyphic]

I still don't get it(i think they could improve it...) But, okey, maybe it's a performance problem, that it's impossible to repair, but why don't do a map, where you can select what terrain textures you want?

Developers don't make decisions like this arbitrarily. It would make no sense to artificially limit the number of textures, so I tend to believe them when they say there are technical limitations. The suggestion of a 'custom' biome where the player chooses the textures seems like a really good compromise to me.

 

[gregorburns]

Who on earth wants an entire park made of red sand?

Actually, the desert biome is my favourite. I just love the colours and the subtle blending of the sand materials and the water reflections in that one in particular. Of course I'm definitely not against having a mix-and-match system of choosing the ones you want, or having a more generic biome with one of each of the basics, but I really do like the biomes that we currently have too and I would hope that any new features allowing a combination of terrain types would compliment that rather than replace it.

 

[zmego]

Actually, the desert biome is my favourite. I just love the colours and the subtle blending of the sand materials and the water reflections in that one in particular. Of course I'm definitely not against having a mix-and-match system of choosing the ones you want, or having a more generic biome with one of each of the basics, but I really do like the biomes that we currently have too and I would hope that any new features allowing a combination of terrain types would compliment that rather than replace it.

Don't get me wrong I think the desert biome is my favorite looking, but I will never build an entire park because you can't theme anything but desert/western. If there were like 3 grass types (that aren't olive color) I would be all over it. I also think snow covered rock is a MUST.

 

[FinalMantasyX]

The "performance reasons' and "technical limitations" arguments are valid, but they're also complete .

Frontier made a decided choice at some point in development to do things in a way that limited the number of textures they could use for terrain.

To dismiss it as "Technical limitations" is disingenuous. These are design problems, first and foremost, that LEAD to technical limitations.

It's like if I designed a car with square wheels, and when you got mad that it didn't actually go anywhere, I said technical limitations prevent hte wheels from rolling, so you should be grateful there's a car to begin with because I can't do anything about it.

Technically, yeah, I'm right. But what really happened was I built a car with stupid wheels. Frontier built a system with, frankly, stupid limitations.

Other games have hundreds of terrain textures on a single map without issue. Planet Coaster has...9.